


October

by ProfessorDrarry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentions of self-harm, Quidditch, Second War with Voldemort, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-11 04:51:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12927837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorDrarry/pseuds/ProfessorDrarry
Summary: Oliver and Marcus are two halves of a very confusing whole; twisted and bent, built on frustration and love in equal parts. When they both end up back at Hogwarts, in the middle of a war, there is a chance for them to pick up where they left off, to fix what was broken over Quidditch and cold nights. A chance to find the way back home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These boys always break my heart, but this fic broke me a tiny bit. Endless thank yous to Jade Presley and JEPierre, of Alpha and Beta-- especially since both of them were very encouraging to my 'imma hurt the boys, guys...I'm scared'. 
> 
> MIND THE TAGS.

 

  
  
_“October is like home to me; and I’m home sick.”_

October is a fickle creature; it can be beautiful, a season of shift and a harbinger of change. It can bring unexpected warm days, and crisp, clear evenings. But October is also unpredictable, and not always lovely. Some years, it would rain for weeks, bringing grey, impenetrable clouds or early snow, the smell of wet leaves and decay.

If October is fickle, October in the Highlands of Scotland is the most capricious of all. Some years, the first frost fell before even the hardest working farmers had found time to pull in the crops; the late summer barley would die, and frozen, brittle wheat stalks would snap in the wind. Those years, the sheep would huddle together on the hill, and even still, some would die. The wind would gust so violently and so cold that it could cut to the bone. There were no bonfires and no revelry; just grumbling through the rain to try and finish preparing before the snow fell in earnest. In those Octobers, the ground would freeze solid and take with it the roots of the perennial plants, and even the scrub brush looked cowed and bent, dead before the month was out.

This was not one of those years.

Oliver breathed deeply, taking in the smell of the wildflowers and the grass of the hills, the smell of the tarps that blew in the gentle wind. This was the sort of October where it would still be warm enough on All Hallow's to sit out and have a picnic, singing songs till the early morning and burning the last of the summer brush. The people would have parties and there would be so much fruit stored for the winter that the extra cider from the foul fruit would be plentiful.

He forced himself forward, taking in the sight of the one place he had missed, the one thing that had always felt safe and perfect, no matter what else was going on.

The Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts looked exactly the same, although he knew for a fact that it had been taken down and rebuilt at least three times since he had left school. All a part of the magic of the castle, he supposed, that it looked as ancient and noble as it always had; the golden hoops stood still in the wind, higher than he’d remembered. The turrets of the stands held the same striped flags, each house’s banner dotting the corners proudly. The short clip of the lawns was soft under his boots, grass which was never cut and yet always smelled like it had just been trimmed.

It was beautiful.

It was home.

Oliver smiled to himself and set down his pack, unclipping his broom and laughing at himself. He was still half pretending that he was only here for the meeting; to appease an old mentor, to hear McGonagall out. Yet, he had all of his things packed into a trunk he’d left by the gates, and his broom was here, in its travelling case, clipped and well cared for. Ready.

He held his hand over the sleek cherry wood and smiled down as it gracefully floated into his grasp. The team’s broom-maker had hated his decision, asking for the broom to be made from the light, strong wood. He had grumbled about ‘young fools’ and promised that Oliver would never be able to control it. Oliver had insisted, and had never once regretted it; he listened now for the gentle hum that he imagined he could hear from the broom when he was alone. He knew it sounded crazy, but he could always feel its magic beneath his palms, always knew that it would twist and spiral gently in his grip, until it was tuned to his own signature. The broom barely required his touch, as though it already knew what he wanted and where he was going. He mounted it, tucking his feet onto the brass rails and gripping gently.

As they rose as one unit into the sky, Oliver let out a relaxed breath, one of contentment and ease.

He whooped with joy as he got to full height, taking lazy, slow loops around the pitch, occasionally spiraling into a dive, threading himself through the hoops, revelling in the ability to fly without a goal or a purpose in the crisp air.

October had always been made for Quidditch.

 

**—XxX—**

Far below, unnoticed by Wood, Marcus Flint was admiring the same field. He was breathing in the same scents and experiencing the same resetting of all his emotions. He had felt so uneasy for the past year, and he knew now that he’d just missed _this_. He had been homesick without even knowing what home meant anymore. He held tightly to his broom, the old Clean Sleep that was trusty if not flashy, well-cared for and worth the extra effort. It may not be as fast as some of the newer styles, but it was never out of sync, never prone to hexing or fatigue. Marcus loved it like a child.

He saw the dot of flight high above him and instinctively looked up. He knew, of course, who it was; there could be no mistaking the glide, the spins, the loops. There were few people who flew like that; flew as though they were made from wind and feathers, untroubled by gravity or laws of physics.

He inhaled sharply. He’d known it was possible, likely even, that he’d find Oliver in his return. There had been hints in Minerva’s last three letters. But he didn’t expect to run into him here. _Alone_. Immediately.

He felt foolish for not realising that _of course_ this is where Oliver would come first, too. Of course he would fly before doing anything else. After all, that’s why he was here, wasn’t it?

Marcus walked to the end of the pitch and pulled out a set of worn, beaten practise balls, releasing only the Quaffle and hoping against all hope that he would survive the next fifteen minutes.

 

**—XxX—**

When a Quaffle flew past, Oliver instinctively knocked it away from the hoop with the end of his broom before looking around wildly, on guard and wary; this may be the school pitch, but a solo flier was rare and strange. The identity of the other person was obscured by the wild dive they had taken to grab the ball out of the air, and then by the desperate twists the player took before sending the ball toward him again. There were no hints in clothing; likely not a student, then, given the lack of school practice gear or house colours. Oliver saved the goal easily, dipping and turning three more times before the other player finally slowed close enough for recognition.

“See you still use illegal feints. I figured the League would have cured you of that by now,” a voice called.

Oliver didn’t reply. He looked toward the other player, the wind waffling through his ears, and without thinking, he sunk to the ground quickly, feeling his pulse shift beneath his skin. He felt the other broom land beside him, and he kicked off, dropping his own to the ground. His anger, flaring and flagellating him, felt foreign and unfamiliar; it was rusty, after all. He’d not had to deal with this particular emotion in a long time. When he turned, Marcus’ face told him everything he needed to know. Flint was terrified, and Oliver was not about to make him feel safer.

“What are you doing here?” Oliver said, an icy deadliness to his voice that he hadn’t heard from himself in a long time.

“I imagine the same thing that you are,” Marcus responded, taking a step to dismount his broom, standing still and looking at the ground.

_Wise,_ Oliver thought. _No eye contact. Won’t save you, but wise._

“That’s it? That’s going to be your opening line? A quip about my flying?” Oliver felt his fists tighten into balls, and his vision tunnelled.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Marcus replied, sounding both hardened and broken, all at once, as only a Slytherin can.

Marcus Flint knew what he’d gotten himself into. He’d tried everything he could to just walk away when he had arrived to find Oliver flying peacefully in the cool October breeze, gently caressing the air around his broom, just as he always had. Even once he’d thrown the ball, Marcus had wished there was another way, a way to back down and run.

The first punch was vicious, grabbing his jaw and throwing him off balance, largely because Marcus didn’t raise his fists to retaliate. Oliver, though light and wiry, had always had an effective right hook. The second swing caught him across the other cheek, and still, he left his hands at his sides despite Oliver’s angry shouts for him to fight back. The third blow hit his ribs, taking his breath away, though the accompanying scream is what really broke him open.

When the fourth attack from Oliver collided with his left arm, Marcus reached out and pulled Oliver close, into an embrace that the Gryffindor fought with his entire body, the whole time growling and clawing and screaming. Marcus just held on, dealt with the pain of the scratches, until finally, slowly, Oliver collapsed into him, his screams turning wrung out sobs that destroyed Marcus’ ability to think straight.

“You fucker. You absolute fucking...I can’t even...you left,” Oliver was sobbing, tearing at the back of Marcus’ jumper, his head buried deep in his shoulder. “You just left. No more letters. No explanation. And then you just turn up here, as though-”

“Yes,” Marcus whispered, still clinging to the man that was trying desperately to get away from him. “Yes, Oliver.”

When Marcus finally stepped back, stepping space between them where there had never been space before, he saw that Oliver’s resolve had returned.

“Fuck you, Marcus Flint,” Oliver said quietly, no anger or spite left in his tone. The sentence cut to the quick as a result, and Marcus had to rub his hands across his face to watch the other man walk away.

“Flint! Wood!” A familiar voice called from the edge of the pitch. “I thought I might find you two here. Come quickly. This is not the sort of conversation one has on a Quidditch pitch.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Marcus ignored the fact that Oliver was technically walking beside him as he shouldered his belongings and walked toward Professor McGonagall. As he drew near enough to see her face, he found himself in a subtle state of shock; the transformation of his former Transfiguration professor was both complete and terrible.

Minerva McGonagall had never exactly appeared young. The woman did not garner pleasant talks of her youth, and no one was certain how old she actually was. Yet, she had always contained quickness and sternness, vibrancy and wit. These things made her seem vivacious and alive, and age was never really a consideration.

Before them stood a woman quite undone. Her face appeared haggard and broken. Her normally completely contained hair was frizzed and escaping its bun, and she looked as though she had not slept in weeks. It hadn’t truly been that long since he’d seen her, but she seemed to have aged by decades over the course of mere months.

Marcus found himself quite unnerved.

“Quickly please, gentlemen,” she said to them as they approached. “We are walking down to the village.”

Oliver stopped at the gates to pick up his abandoned trunk, and the three of them began an oddly paced march down the familiar path to Hogsmeade.

Marcus shivered unpleasantly every time Oliver accidentally fell into step. How many times had they done this walk together? How many times had they strolled at a leisurely pace, having abandoned their friends to steal some time away from house rivalry and Quidditch talk? How often had they had to pause to entangle arms and hands as they trod down the well-worn cobbles, before losing themselves in an afternoon of butterbeer and stolen kisses in a dark corner at the pub?

The crisp breeze kept lifting Oliver’s hair, wafting the scent of him and assaulting Marcus every ten steps; the faint smell of almonds and laundry undoing him moment by moment as the memories grew clearer and more painful. He trained his focus on the steps in front of him and pulled a mask of Pureblood indifference down over his features. It hurt, and it felt unnatural, but at least it was some sort of protection.

When he was sure his voice would not waver, he cleared his throat and looked to McGonagall.

“Where are we going, Professor?” He asked coolly. “The letter said you required assistance with the Quidditch season?”

“If only it were that simple, Flint. Please. Not here.” She glanced around fervently in a display of distrust and fear that was so out of character, he and Oliver shared a look of concern, lasting only a second, before he remembered himself and his features hardened once again. Marcus sighed but looked back at the path.

Finally, they reached the edge of the village, but McGonagall veered to the left, onto a side path that no Hogwarts student would think to take, leading  _away_  from Honeydukes and The Three Broomsticks. A few minutes of winding down this strange goat path led them to a picket fence and a small cottage. Muttering a few words until the gate opened, McGonagall ushered them inside.

“Wards had to be dropped,” she explained. “In, in. Quickly, before we are seen.”

The cottage was old and crumbled, but Marcus found he immediately liked it. The ancient thatched roof had a small chimney that listed badly to one side, and the walk was cracked in at least fifty places. Ivy clung to white stone walls, paint peeled on blue shutters, and the window boxes hung heavy with primroses and trailing vines.

The tiny blue door creaked when he pushed it open, and he stepped into a bright stone floored kitchen, with a squat aga in the corner and a large old wooden table in the middle. Squashy sofas and an armchair sat beside a fireplace, and a shelf stuffed with books he couldn’t make out was shoved into the last remaining wall space.

To the back, he could see two doors, only one of which was open, revealing rose-coloured light through pink curtains, and a small bed against the wall. It smelled both homey and stale, and Marcus unconsciously felt his body relax, despite the tense bodies standing beside him. He walked forward into the room and sat down gently at the kitchen table.

McGonagall seemed relieved to be inside, her shoulders collapsed and her posture relaxed as she joined him at the table.

“Flint, can I trouble you to put the kettle on? Top shelf,” she said, dropping down into a seat.

“Of course,” Marcus replied, turning towards the stove. He knew he had shocked Oliver slightly, felt him jump and stare at his back. Never before in his own memory had he taken orders well, nor had he ever gotten along with Minerva McGonagall.

“I won’t dither,” McGonagall began. “I have called you both here on false pretence, but I am hoping that I shall be forgiven once I have explained.”

She inhaled sharply, as though trying to bolster herself, and Marcus sat down at the table with them expectantly.

“You have, I assume, heard that we are soon to be at war? That He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned? Well, I fear it has gotten worse in our little corner of Scotland,” she said with a sigh. “The Ministry has been infiltrated, and in turn, has taken over control of Hogwarts. Things aren’t as...obvious as last year, but we have reason to believe that the school is not as safe as it once was.”

“What?” Marcus questioned. “How? Where is Dumbledore?”

“ _Professor_  Dumbledore,” McGonagall said carefully, a hint of her former tone returning. “Is doing what he can to defeat a very powerful wizard. But I fear I need some... _external_ assistance. I have brought you both here because you are believable. You can be Quidditch coaches, with your combined expertise, but what I am asking of you is far more than that.”

For the next quarter of an hour, Professor McGonagall told them tales of secret forces, rebel armies, and spoke of an order whose original members were mostly dead. She looked at them with such a sense of seriousness and purpose that Oliver and Marcus were once again left to wonder at the full sanity of their former school teacher, and when the silence after her speech grew unbearable, Oliver cleared his throat and stood to remove a screaming kettle from the stove.

“Forgive me, Professor,” Oliver said, turning back to the table. “I don’t think I understand...what has any of this got to do with us? What do you need us to do?”

“Well, Master Wood. I need you to become spies.”

Oliver and Marcus looked at each other once again, and Marcus was the first to speak.

“Spies?” He repeated, incredulous.

“Yes,” she said calmly. “You will live here, in the village, and you will come up to the school each afternoon to instruct students in flying, coach the Quidditch teams, and oversee games. During the day, I need you here, listening and gathering information. Occasionally, there may be other tasks, but that is the most of it.”

“Live  _here_?” Oliver said, gesturing at the cottage.

“You want us to live here,” Marcus echoed. “ _Together_?”

“Professor,” they both started to say, but she raised a quelling hand and they fell silent.

“Gentlemen,” she said gently. “If you truly believe that I am unaware of your…. _history_ , then you do not give me enough credit. I understand what I am asking of you. However, you are both uniquely qualified. You will not raise suspicion. Former students returning to work for the school, and Quidditch stars to boot. It is very normal. There are two rooms, so you needn't panic. I wouldn’t be asking if I thought…”

She trailed off and looked at the table. Marcus sighed and scrubbed his face. Silence sat over the room for a moment.

“I’ll stay,” Marcus whispered finally. “I...I need to do everything I can. My family barely survived last time.”

“Thank you, Flint,” McGonagall replied. It was the softest voice Oliver had ever heard her use, and he nodded.

“Okay,” he said gently, standing and retrieving his trunk from where he’d left it by the door. “Okay.”

He walked back to the open bedroom, placed his trunk down gently, and shut the door.

Marcus stared at the wood grain for a moment, his mouth open and his heart racing.

“That’s entirely my fault,” he said to Minerva. “But I know Oliver. You can count on him.”

“I know I can count on  _both_  of you, Flint. I know what you went through. I think perhaps he needs to know too?”

“I would tell him if he would look at me for more than five seconds,” Marcus said, scratching viciously at the wood of the table.

“You know, Slytherins get a reputation for being stubborn, cruel, in order to protect themselves and the ones they care about. But it’s Gryffindors who wound so easily that they come away broken, and they are usually moving so fast at the time that they are shattered completely.” McGonagall reached forward and placed her hand over Marcus’, stopping the damaging motion and meeting his eyes. “Slytherins, however, are very good at picking up the pieces. You’ll get there.”

Marcus smiled at her gratefully and stood with her to let her out. She taught him the wards for the door, and when she left, he turned back around and discovered the empty silence of the cottage that was definitely going to drive him insane. He did the only thing that he felt was available to him; he scrounged for food and began making dinner.

 

**—XxX—**

Oliver sat in the tiny room and stared at the ceiling in quickly waning light. The curtains that hung on the window were handmade and ancient; the pink floral pattern was still casting that ethereal rosy hue around the room, and he found it very relaxing. There was a white roll top desk in the other corner, and the bed was relatively comfortable, if too short for his tall frame. He’d survive.

He heard Marcus moving around outside the room and reevaluated. Would he survive? He certainly didn’t want to talk to the man; he didn’t want to hear whatever sorry excuse he had for disappearing, for pretending that they hadn’t been together for three years. He didn’t want to hear the excuse that his former lover had for completely breaking him as though he didn’t matter.

For an hour, Oliver didn’t move, and finally, he felt as though his skin was going to crawl off of his body. He threw open his trunk and found his jacket, and whipped the door open without pausing to look around the room.

“I made food,” Marcus said lamely, startled by the sudden movement.

“Whatever,” Oliver said viciously. “I’m going out.”

“The wards,” Marcus muttered, casting a quick spell as Oliver opened the door.

“ _Fine_ ,” Oliver shouted. “Teach them to me so I can leave.”

Marcus did begrudgingly, and then watched helplessly as Oliver stormed down the garden and out the gate.

“Yeah, this is going to go well,” Marcus said to the empty cottage, sitting down alone to eat strange and possibly expired pasta.

* * *

  
  


 

 


	3. Chapter 3

  
  
Marcus ate, and cleaned up, and then tried to distract himself with settling in. He built a large fire against the evening chill, and wandered around opening shutter, finding a broom to sweep out settled dust.  
  
He ventured into the second bedroom, discovered that it was much larger, with a lovely canopy bed, a big bay window with a velvet cushion, a bureau, and a desk. He had half a mind to move Oliver’s things into it and take the smaller room, but he finally decided that would only lead to more fighting.  
  
Finally, out of tasks and with no sign of Oliver’s return, Marcus sat on the sofa with the files McGonagall had left him; he tried to focus on the details of what their cover at the school could entail, but he kept glancing out the windows and at the door. Sighing as the night wore on, he gave up and crawled into the big bed, nestling under a heavy, sweet-smelling duvet, grateful for the warm comfort that hugged his aching chest.  
  
Without being aware of it, Marcus drifted off to sleep, and woke with a start by a banging door and a large crash. He forced himself not to move; the cottage was warded to high heaven. He knew it was just Oliver. He stayed buried under the covers as the crashes continued, followed by the gentle curses that Oliver had preferred for as long as he could remember. The man had always been more of a ‘ _heavens’_  and a  _‘Merlin’s Beard’_  sort than a true swearer. For most of his interactions, Oliver Wood was jovial and polite, calm in the greatest storm. He was the type of person others counted on. Only Marcus had ever been able to get a reaction out of him, and even then, it was usually only on the Quidditch pitch that it was easy to piss him off.  
  
_Well,_  he thought to himself from the safety of the bed.  _Except for now. Now it’s quite easy to piss him off._  
  
The crashing continued for a few more moments before the cottage fell silent again. Exhaling gratefully, Marcus turned to his side, tried his best to fall back asleep and pretend he hadn’t been woken up at all. This goal was made much more difficult when the soft click of a door handle made him jolt uncomfortably again, and it became impossible when the bed beside him dipped and a warm weight settled in underneath the old-fashioned duvet.  
  
“Oliver,” Marcus sighed. “You said you were sleeping in the other bed. I’ll go there, now, will I?”  
  
“No, just shut up and go to sleep.”  
  
“Oliver, you’re drunk. You’ll regret this, and then I’m pretty sure you’ll murder me in my sleep. I’m going.”  
  
He slid out of the bed carefully, leaving the comforter in place around Oliver’s prone form, his eyes already shut. From his bare shoulders, it seemed that Oliver had come in and stripped off everything except his singlet and boxers. Once again, that painful feeling of nostalgia knocked the air out of Marcus’ lungs, and he inhaled sharply and turned quickly to leave the room.  
  
“Of course you’re going,” Oliver mumbled. “Leaving is your speciality, after all.”  
  
It was late. The cottage was cold, and he was tired. He was being forced to move because Oliver was stubborn, and Oliver was drunk. But it wasn’t any of those things that made Marcus finally snap, made his anger finally surface and decide he was done being humble and remorseful and repentant. It was McGonagall's words echoing in his ears, screaming that he had to tell Oliver what had happened.  
  
“Shut up, arsehole. You don’t know what you’re saying,” Marcus said, no emotion in his tone and a hand still on the bedroom door. “We’ll talk in the morning. And this time you’ll listen, or so help me–”  
  
“ _Excuse_  me,” Oliver’s drunken lisp hissed at him.  
  
When Marcus turned, he found Oliver sitting up and glaring at him. Sure enough, he was only in his undershirt. His shoulders were still skinny and freckled. His collarbones still jutted out enticingly. But sometime over the course of the past two years, he’d also managed to develop rippled muscles in his upper arms, and a chest that actually had definition. Marcus’ anger didn’t deflate, but his heart did leap at the sight. It would, of course, have been nicer if it hadn’t been accompanied by yet another murderous glare.  
  
“Go on then,” Oliver hissed again. “Tell me what it is that I don’t know.”  
  
“Obviously no, you idiot. You’re drunk,” Marcus sighed. “I’m not going to have what could be the last important conversation we ever have while you’re pissed.”  
  
“The last... _Merlin_ , you really are an idiot. Have you still not realised?” Oliver growled, flopping back onto the pillow. “You’re stuck with me, you dolt. I have to work with you, whether or not you like it. So the way I see it, I think being drunk as often as possible is the solution. So go on. Tell me this great epic. The one that excuses all your choices for the past eighteen months. The one that proves my friends weren’t right about you. Go on.”  
  
Marcus considered for a moment; perhaps this  _would_  be easier. If Oliver was already asking, if he had the cover of midnight, the promise of drunken sleep, and the possibility of Oliver not even remembering things. It could be like practise. A trial run. He nodded at the empty room and sat on the window ledge. He was just going to talk. He wasn’t going to look at Oliver.  
  
“The last time I saw you, at the flat in Cardiff?” he began. “I already knew. I already knew I was leaving. That’s why I was so angry.”  
  
“You were angry because I finally saw you for the slob you really are,” Oliver joked sleepily.  
  
Marcus ignored him and continued, the memory he’d been avoiding for the better part of a year and a half slipping around him like a mantle, guiding his words.  
  
“I never really told you what it was like for us, the first time You-Know-Who tried to take over. My family isn’t as old as some. We have always had questionable blood ties, despite the  _Sacred_ status.”  
  
When his father had been a young man, the radical politics of blood allegiance had been  _de rigueur_ ; dinner parties were centred around discussions of magical bond marriage and lines of heritage, new spells for determining blood purity, the avenues one could take if an unacceptable marriage was discovered in one's family. The Flint Estate participated fully in these conversations, had all the great meetings and sung votes in the right circles of the Ministry. Had things remained calm and political, this likely would have been enough.  
  
Enough to protect them from their greatest secret.  
  
Marcus Flint explained to Oliver, as it had once been explained to him, that his parents had married for love. So rare and so foolish, in the circles in which they ran. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Cassiopeia Travers had been truly a Travers. Only three people in the world were aware that she was not; her mother, her grandfather, and her husband, Angelo Flint, who loved her so much that he refused to refuse her hand when she told him.  
  
So instead, he went to lobby meetings and held parties where the reigning belief was that magic should stay in magic families, and went home at night to his Muggle-born wife and half-blood son.  
  
When the deaths started, they seemed unimpressive. They looked like radicals fighting radicals. The Flints just stayed out of it. It was easy, at first, because Angelo had an important enough job that no one spent time threatening him.  
  
Then, however, the Dark Mark had become the standard for purity, and everything had fallen apart almost immediately. Cassi was sent into hiding with the baby, and Marcus, all of four years old, had no memory of anything except playing on the beach on an island until suddenly he was allowed to come home. He still didn’t know the details of that time; he’d never asked, and he didn’t plan on it. Whenever it came up, his mother would get a pained expression on her face, and her eyes would become so distant that he would do something stupid and silly to change the subject.  
  
He learned very quickly that asking about how your father had been killed was simply a Thing You Did Not Do.  
  
When the stories that the Dark Lord had returned started cropping up the year after they had left school, he had been on high alert for months. His mother’s family was acting strangely. The holidays had been tense and full of conversations he didn’t truly understand, which, at eighteen, had been just embarrassing enough that he hadn’t bothered to ask. He discussed his training schedule, playing in the Welsh second league and hoping to get picked up by a reputable team by the end of the season. He let them ask questions about his future marriage, he let them be Pureblood and offensive, because the look of fear on his mother’s face was familiar in a memory that he barely recognised.  
  
The day Oliver had shown up out of the blue, the last time he’d seen him, the last time he’d written him, that was the day when his mother had announced that they were leaving, all of them. That they were going back into hiding.  
  
“ _Back_  into hiding?” Oliver interrupted, his tone harsh and unforgiving.  
  
“Yes, Oliver. We spent all of the first war hiding. Were you even fucking listening? Anyway, we left the day after I sent you home. I couldn’t tell anyone where we were going. My mother wouldn’t let me write. It hasn’t been fun, but that’s where we’ve been.”  
  
“Seems rather convenient,” Oliver hissed. “A hidden bunker and a communication gag from a war that hasn’t even begun? There are easier ways to break it off with someone. What, did they point out that a half-blood — and oh yes, a  _boy_  — didn't qualify as an ‘ _advantageous_  marriage’? Did you ever even think about telling them about me?”  
  
“Of course,” Marcus grimaced, meeting Oliver’s harsh eyes, his head still on the pillow but far more alert. “I told my mother. She was happy. She would have let me… You don’t understand. We hid because we aren’t that. I’m  _not_  pure-blood, Oliver. I’m not them.”  
  
“Fine, whatever. It hardly matters. You can claim all you want, but you still–”   
  
“Yes. I know, I left.” Marcus interrupted. “And it is clear that you are never going to move past that very specific detail. Fine. Why are we still talking then? Why are you in my room at midnight?”  
  
“Why are you back?” Oliver said quickly, sitting up suddenly and boring his eyes into Marcus’ gaze. “If that’s why you left, why are you back? It’s hardly safe now.”  
  
Marcus looked down at his lap and sighed. He stood up and walked back to the door. He was done. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to run away. He wanted to be anywhere but here, having this conversation, with  _him_. He knew exactly how the next ten minutes were going to go, and he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve what was going to happen, and he hated himself so much for wanting it anyway.  
  
“I’m back because she’s dead,” he said quietly, staring at the door. “My mother. She killed herself when the Minister made his announcement. It was...she was terrified, I think. So I’m back.”  
  
Marcus heard Oliver move, but he refused to look over.  
  
“Goodnight, Oliver,” he whispered.  
  
Oliver was suddenly at his back, suddenly against him at the door, suddenly smelling like whisky and cheap cologne and the strange, woody, rancid smell of the Hog’s Head.  
  
He pulled Marcus backwards, pulled him into an embrace that felt wrong and perfect, suffocating and comforting. Marcus inhaled so quickly that he felt dizzy. He was suddenly facing the fuzzy focus of a drunken Oliver Wood, and he was even more quickly being suffocated by a kiss that was too hard and too violent and too much. He needed it, desperately needed it.  
  
“Don’t leave again,” Oliver whispered, dragging him off the wall. “You...does anyone else even know? I’m sorry, Marco. I’m so sorry. Don’t...Just…”  
  
“You’ll regret it the second you wake up sober,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “It’s not a good idea. We have too much to do.”  
  
“Don’t leave me here, again,” Oliver repeated, dragging Marcus back with him.  
  
They collapsed onto the side of the bed, and Oliver’s mouth never left his. There were heated moments and moments of whispered apologies, but there was no way to make up for lost moments. There was gasping and clawing of skin. There was the same heat that had always existed, and there was calm that never had.  
  
Marcus felt ancient when Oliver finally crawled up the length of the bed and collapsed beside him, the alcohol and the emotions finally catching up with him and dragging him into sleep. He wrapped them both in blankets as the strange October chill threatened to steal his refound warmth, as the stupidity of the moment sent a shiver down his spine.  
  
He slept, wrapped up with the mistakes he’d made and the limbs of this perfect man until the sun rose slowly into the morning and woke him in a subtle blue-lit room. He slid out from underneath Oliver’s arm and retrieved his pants from the floor. He crept out into the cottage and into the Rose Room, curling into the freezing sheets until morning took real hold of the world.  
  
It felt like the least he could do, at this point. To let Oliver wake and have reality catch up with him while he was alone. Marcus, in the meantime, prepared himself for the finality of his every regret. He prepared his heart and his head for being even more viciously hated than before.


	4. Chapter 4

When Oliver woke up, he expected the monstrous headache and the dry mouth. He expected the blurry vision and the aching limbs. He’d drunk rather a lot at the pub in a very short amount of time.  
  
What he had not anticipated, however, was being naked. And sore. And in Marcus’ bed. He squeezed his eyes closed as he realised each of these things, hoping to block out what little light the heavy curtains were letting in. Instead, the darkness let his brain sort through the frazzled, disjointed memories from the early morning hours; he remembered wandering into the room, and having a conversation with that he hadn’t been ready for, before asking Marcus to stay.  
  
He remembered  _forcing_  Marcus to stay.  
  
He cursed himself silently for his weakness and his stupidity. He hadn’t lasted even twenty-four hours without dragging Marcus to bed; it’s not that he was surprised, not exactly. He’d wanted to drag Marcus to the ground of the Quidditch Pitch, for Merlin’s sake. It was the definition of their relationship, anger and harsh words; fighting and then  _not_  fighting. They were not made of softness and light. They were fists and scratches, all pain.  
  
Oliver couldn’t forgive himself for his moment of weakness, but he could definitely understand it. Yet, he was alone. Alone in a giant bed, hungover and angry. Clearly, whatever sense of guilt that had forced Marcus to stay in Oliver’s drunkenness had worn off over the course of the night. Even more certainly, absolutely nothing had been permanently changed.  
  
Oliver felt his pain subside; with his eyes still stubbornly shut, he developed a plan. The only thing that was going to work here was feigned indifference and false ignorance. He could do that.  
  
When he finally wandered into the kitchen, back in his pants since his trunk was in the other room, he had forced himself to feel less dishevelled and messy, even if he didn’t look it. He was ready to face Marcus, but instead, he found the door to the other bedroom still closed and the cottage silent. Running a distracted hand through his hair, he took advantage and went to the toilet, cleaning his teeth and feeling slightly more human for it.  
  
By the time Marcus made an appearance, Oliver had boiled the kettle and was settled at the kitchen table, the timetables and notes from McGonagall spread all around him. He was deep in thought, planning drills and organising matches. For a moment, he truly didn’t hear Marcus.  
  
That changed when Marcus let out an audible sigh.  
  
“So you’re awake,” he said.  
  
“We have to teach tomorrow. Figured one of us should prepare,” Oliver replied without looking up, banishing all emotion from his voice.  
  
“Yes, well...very noble of you. Only  _I_  prepared yesterday when you decided to go get pissed instead,” Marcus retorted.  
  
Oliver looked up and decided not to reply. Marcus’ eyes narrowed and Oliver felt a tiny surge of glee at creating the reaction. He went back to staring at the rosters; it seemed that he and Flint would only be responsible for Quidditch practices. Madame Hooch would still be teaching flying lessons, which was good because Oliver hadn’t had to go over fundamentals in years, and he’d been nervous about having tiny, terrified first years in his charge. He was engrossed in planning again in no time.  
  
Soon, there was a startling slam, Marcus stomping viciously out of the bedroom wearing a brown jacket, and worn leather boots done up tight.  
  
“I’m going into the village,” he spat in response to Oliver’s glare.  
  
“Dunno why you’d think I’d care,” Oliver shrugged, looking away.  
  
There was a pained sigh as Marcus crossed the room. “Yeah,” he scoffed, his biting tone tearing like teeth into the corner of Oliver’s skull. “I don’t know, either.”  
  
He slammed the front door for good measure, leaving Oliver with silence and regret; two things that he had become so familiar with in the past two years that he didn’t even question their reappearance. Digging in the bag at his feet, he pulled out a quill and a blank scrap of parchment. He began to scribble down a list; things he remembered from the night before. Parts of his conversation with Marcus that had stuck to the drunken haze of his sleeping mind and burrowed in deep enough for morning recall.  
  
If even half of it was true, he knew he was eventually going to have to acknowledge what had happened. If that  _one_  thing was true, if Marcus’ mother was truly ... gone. Well, he wasn’t really sure what to do about that one.  
  
He crossed a new column onto the page and started a second list. A list of reasons why he was still in pain. By the time he was through, he felt small, abandoned, and alone. Worst of all, he knew that he was wrong; he knew he was being childish and that he was broken, and that he had taken something he had no right to, not anymore.  
  
The day crawled by slowly and painfully, and Oliver quickly ran out of ways to try and fill it. He wandered into the garden and pulled out deadfall and weeds for an hour or so. He went for a run around the hills of the outside of the village, but even that only occupied so much time. By late afternoon, with the sun threatening to disappear behind the horizon, he was bored and he was lonely. Making a snap decision, he walked up to the castle.  
  
The short journey cleared his head, and as Hogwarts came into view, he knew he had made the right decision. The looming towers and foreboding gates felt ancient and powerful, and they successfully made all of his emotions feel petty and small. He was here to help with a war, after all, and he’d spent his day worrying about a drunken mistake with his ex-boyfriend?  
  
Oliver approached the gates slowly, and was startled when they swung open for him on silent hinges; by the time he made it to the front doors, he could see a tall dark figure waiting for him. He nodded once as he approached, and found a smiling headmaster in its wake.  
  
“Professor Dumbledore,” he said reverently.  
  
“Hello, Mr Wood. Minerva mentioned you were joining us. Here for a spot of supper, I assume?” The old wizard looked exactly the same; a twinkle in his eye that might not be as bright as it had been, but the stark contrast he’d found in his old head of house was not on the face of his headmaster.  
  
“If that’s alright?”  
  
“Of course, of course. But you didn’t bring Mr Flint?” Dumbledore grinned. “I assumed that two young men like you would be aching for someone else to do the cooking.”  
  
“He, um...” Oliver started, falling short when he found no words to describe the situation.  
  
“Not to worry, he won’t starve,” Dumbledore said jovially. “It’s been a pleasure to see you again, but I am afraid you caught me on my way out. Good evening.”  
  
“Evening, sir,” Oliver murmured as the headmaster strode past him.  
  
The Great Hall buzzed with the same noise it always did, and Oliver found himself suddenly paralyzed with fear; this had seemed so right and so easy mere moments ago, and now, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.  
  
“Oliver Wood!” Said a small, familiar voice jovially. “Why it is you, isn’t it? Come, come. You have a place at the Head Table. Don’t look so lost, boy, they’ll eat you alive!”  
  
“Hello, Professor Flitwick,” Oliver mumbled, following the tiny wizard through the crowd of staring students, most of whom he still knew.  
  
It dawned on him that this task may end up being more difficult than he’d been thinking it was going to be. He’d forgotten that half his former team was still at school, that Harry Potter was still going to be captain of the Gryffindor team, that he had been in both classes and the pub with so many of these students. How was he going to coach them as though he was better than them? How the hell was he supposed to deal with Slytherin upper years?  
  
It wasn’t until he reached the front of the hall that he realised  _exactly_  how, and he sighed in frustration as he saw Marcus sitting beside Hagrid, chatting cheerfully. He was irritatingly beautiful, and Oliver hated that he was noticing. The soft light of the Hall made his shaggy hair and sharp features look dark and deep, and his long lashes were beautifully highlighted against the candle light. Marcus was older and broader, and it suited him as he sat with teachers he had never really respected, looking pleased and calm, and just generally the least Slytherin he had ever looked.  
  
Oliver sat quietly throughout dinner, made pleasant conversation with Flitwick, and chewed through the roast beef that had always been his favourite, but it kept turning to ash in his mouth.  
  
Between he and Marcus was Professor Pomona, who asked a million questions about his Quidditch plans all through pudding, successfully distracting him. By the time the plates cleared themselves, the students leaping up and racing off to after dinner activities and homework, Oliver felt himself sigh, happy and relaxed; he was full, he was calm, and he felt at home. He was determined to let it be enough.  
  
“It is convenient that you are both here,” McGonagall said above him as he pushed his chair back to leave the table. “I have tea in my office. You will both join me.”  
  
He nodded, still trying to remain calm and relaxed, and trailed after her and Marcus, who was chatting amicably.  
  
He had truly missed the castle; it was a hurt in the pit of your stomach that you could never quite place. It had only been two and a half years since he had left the grounds for the last time, but it felt like a century. The damp smell of old, wet stone brought back all the tiny and insignificant memories that made up a life, and sent an unexpected jolt of yearning through him.  
  
He trailed a hand across the bottom of portrait frames, smoothed his fingers over worn stone bannisters, looked around wildly trying to see as many familiar things as he could. Hogwarts was a living breathing place, with a soul and personality, and he wanted to greet it like a long-lost friend.  
  
As they reached the top of the stairs and entered McGonagall’s office, he was embarrassed to find a lump in his throat, and he cleared it harshly as she closed the door.  
  
“These are your assignments,” she said without preamble, handing Marcus a roll of parchment. “They are very detailed, and the less you speak of them to others, the better. We are no longer sure who we can trust.”  
  
“Why is there so much fuss?” Oliver asked, not caring that he sounded insolent and churlish. He was very tired, nostalgic, and he was already fed up with the return of all of his problems. It hadn’t even been two days.  
  
“Muggles are dying, Oliver,” Marcus clipped out, glaring at him. “Muggles, Wizards, and children. Don’t pretend you don’t care about them, at least.”  
  
“Don’t think I was speaking to you,” Oliver muttered.  
  
“Gentlemen. Are we going to have a problem here?” McGonagall said, sounding weary.  
  
“No, Professor,” both men intoned instantly, glaring at each other sidelong. She watched them with an eagle eye for a moment, shook her head and then looked down at her desk.  
  
“You are both fortunate that I have very few options at this juncture. It was not my first choice to bring you both together again. Now, I suggest you head back to the village. It is unwise to be out after dark, and it is fast approaching the witching hour.”  
  
They both nodded and stood slowly. Once back on the stairs, Marcus looked over at Oliver and stopped.  
  
“What?” Oliver glared, crossing his arms.  
  
“Nothing. I’ll just...wait here. You can get a head start back.”  
  
“Don’t be daft,” Oliver sighed. “We are both adults. Surely we are capable of  _walking_  in the same place.”  
  
“Yesterday, I might've agreed. But today–”   
  
“Yes? Well?” Oliver dared. “Go on.”  
  
“Nevermind. Let’s go then.”  
  
They walked in silence across the grounds and past the school gates. It was simultaneously easier and a million times harder in the soft moonlit darkness. Oliver could feel the heat of Marcus’ proximity in the chilled air, could see the shadow of him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t have to watch the waffle of hurt across his eyebrows, didn’t have to see a familiar quirk of a mouth when he found something beautiful or amusing. It was easier, but it was sending his skin crawling just the same. He cleared his throat.  
  
“I hadn’t thought about who we’d be teaching,” he whispered. “We know them, most of them. It’s easy to forget how little time has actually passed, when you’re in the actual world. It might be tough to teach them.”  
  
“Hasn’t felt like such a short time, that’s for sure,” Marcus replied, sounding surprised that Oliver had spoken. “Still, think they’ll be fine. Most of them respect you.”  
  
“The ones who don’t, they respect you, though. We’ll have to  _actually_  work together.”  
  
“Not sure how to convince you that it won’t be me that has a problem with that,” Marcus sighed.  
  
Quiet returned between them as they reached the winding path.  
  
“Oliver, I really didn’t want to leave. Not without telling you anything.”  
  
“Don’t,” Oliver said, hearing the begging in his own voice.  
  
The darkness mixed with the cold night air and the soft sound of Marcus’ voice, the tone only Oliver Wood ever got to hear, and it was ruining his resolve. It was making everything difficult. Marcus stopped trying to apologise and when they reached the cottage, he strode forward confidently down the path, dispelling the wards and looking in control. It felt strange, to know that they had both changed, both grown up.  
  
“You should just take the other bed,” Marcus called as he came back out of the bedroom, dragging his trunk behind him. “You’re too tall to be sleeping in that little thing.”  
  
Oliver watched as Marcus moved his things. He nodded once, summoned his own trunk and brought it with him into the back bedroom. Marcus’ low chuckle made him pause.  
  
“Guess I could have just summoned mine too, hey?” Marcus laughed. “It’s been three years and I still forget I’m allowed to do magic whenever I feel like it.”  
  
Oliver opened his mouth to reply, closed it again, and studied the floor. “I’m going to bed,” he said instead.  
  
Marcus’ laugh died quickly. He turned around and softly shut the door of the front bedroom. Oliver’s heart was beating ridiculously fast, and he had no idea why.

 

**—XxX—**

Marcus was not a fan of being cold when he tried to sleep, he assumed that was why he was awake; judging by the lack of light, it was the middle of the night.

His brain muttered a plan. A ludicrous, terrible, impossibly  _stupid_  plan, but one that was persistent. He tossed and turned for another fifteen minutes before getting up. He stood in the corridor, staring at the door leading to a sleeping Oliver Wood, and imagined the many different ways this could go. Every time he landed on one though, he found he just desperately  _wanted_ the outcome.  
  
Cursed, jinxed, hexed? It was really about time. Hit by a flailing fist? Already happened, and also, very much deserved. Destroyed by the biting tongue of a very angry Gryffindor? It’s not like he wasn’t used to that.  
  
The other, far more pleasant outcomes were what flooded his mind as he pushed the door open and silently padded towards the large bed. Oliver was stretched starfish across the entire thing. Marcus had to suppress a laugh, and found himself grinning like a lunatic. It was just so…  _Oliver_. He quietly squeezed himself into the top corner and burrowed beneath the body-warmed sheets, curling himself into a tight ball. The tension in his shoulders, the tightness that had been there for eighteen months, it all disappeared; he found his eyes burning with uncommon tears as he took in the scent, the sound, the  _feel_  of a sleeping Oliver. He sighed, and immediately froze as the bed shifted. But Oliver's arms simply circled around him, pulled him down further into the sheets, dragged his head into the crook of an arm. Oliver buried his face into Marcus’ neck and huffed gently.  
  
“Tell me to go,” Marcus whispered.  
  
“You know I’m not going to,” Oliver growled back, sleep deepening his voice and making it unrecognisable. He held on tighter, muttering, “You’re freezing.”  
  
“It’s why I came.”  
  
“No,” Oliver whispered, settling down into sleep again. “No, it isn’t.”  
  


**—XxX—**

  
  
Oliver woke up suddenly, and found himself warm and comfortable, stretched across the full length of the bed. He was warm, because Marcus hadn't left; he was packed into the same corner of the bed where Oliver had left him the night before. He was sleeping in a tightly curled ball, and it made Oliver smile. He’d never thought about how strange it was, that the large, loud, brash form of Marcus Flint slept in the smallest pretzeled shape he could get himself into, like he was hiding and scared. He wasn’t, Oliver knew. He slept in a ball when he was happy.  
  
Marcus had stayed, and by staying, he had made a statement while sleeping. Without having a response to the statement, without knowing what he was going to say when they were once again face to face, Oliver decided to go back to sleep. He crushed his face into the baby soft hair at Marcus' neck, inhaled the scent of him, closed his eyes, and drifted off, limbs wrapped comfortably around Marcus.  
  
The next time he awoke, he was alone. He dressed carefully, and found Marcus with an old-fashioned teapot and a stack of papers. He saw Oliver and poured out a cup for him, not meeting his eye.  
  
“I opened McGonagall's parchment," he said brusquely. His tone was gruff, no-nonsense. Business like. His tone drew a line in the sand.  
  
His tone divided the day and the night and Oliver held fast to the peace being offered.  
  
“We don't have to be at the pitch each afternoon until four,” Marcus continued.  
  
“Except on Wednesday,” Oliver agreed, sitting down across from him and sipping the too-strong tea.  
  
“Yes, except Wednesday, when we have the Hufflepuff seventh years skills class earlier,” Marcus explained. “Still, we’ll have lots of time to do this,” he added, holding up the parchment.  
  
“Well? What is it she wants us to do?” Oliver asked.  
  
“We need to gather information, basically,” Marcus sighed. “We have to ask people in the village about the movements of…”  
  
“Of  _them_ ,” Oliver concluded.  
  
“Yes,” Marcus said, looking at Oliver for the first time that morning. “We’ll need to be subtle, though. It’s dangerous to talk about this stuff. I learned that the hard way. How’s your Glamour?”  
  
Oliver took a deep breath and drew his wand from his sleeve, casting at himself and feeling the slight glimmering shudder of a Glamour Charm wash over his face. Marcus’ face dropped into a mask of indifference, and his emotions were impossible to make out.  
  
“It’s passable, I suppose,” he said in the same impersonal tone. “You’ll have to be careful.”  
  
Oliver laughed humorlessly. “I’m sort of amazed it worked at all. Don’t think I’ve done one since that Transfiguration class.”  
  
Marcus looked at him sharply, drew his own wand, and cast at his own face. The effect was immediate; though he knew he was looking at  _Marcus_ , Oliver could have convinced himself quite easily that the bland, nondescript face in front of him was a complete stranger. The impact was an overwhelming sense of discomfort and unease. He looked away.  
  
“Yes,” Marcus said, his voice hard and angry. “Well, I  _have_  done them since seventh year.”  
  
He stood up suddenly and walked toward his bedroom. He paused momentarily, turning back to look at the table.  
  
“I’m just going to get dressed,” Marcus said. “Then we should get a move on. You’ll need a coat. It’s freezing out.”  
  
Oliver nodded, not turning around; he knew his face was burning and he didn’t need the added humiliation of Marcus seeing him. Of  _course_ , he was shit at concealment. He was a boring, semi-famous Quidditch player who loved attention. He didn’t care who saw him at the club or out for groceries. He’d never needed to care, not for one moment, who might see him. The even more stark reality, though, was that it made perfect sense that Marcus was brilliant at the spell. He had, by his own admission, spent the past year and a half in hiding.  
  
Oliver had so many questions, needed so much more information, but he knew he wouldn’t ask. He didn’t think that Daytime Oliver was allowed to ask Daytime Marcus questions, and it was going to make him miserable.


	5. Chapter 5

  
For two months, things went surprisingly well. Marcus and Oliver would spend part of each day in the village, subtly asking people questions and gaining valuable information by wearing a variety of faces. They met up with McGonagall once a week to report what they could, and they worked hard to keep their identities unquestioned by those in the village.  
  
Oliver insisted that they go to the pub or to get food at the castle at least a few times a week as themselves. Though they never went together, the students knew that they were both at Hogwarts; it would be stupid, he reasoned, to pretend they weren’t. The plan worked, and more than once, Oliver heard his own name in conversation in the village. The rumour spread quickly that  _the_  Oliver Wood, successful Quidditch player, was teaching at Hogwarts.  
  
Quidditch practices usually went smoothly, and they both learned as much as they taught. The captains of the Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw teams were immediately respectful of Oliver’s suggestions, and the Slytherins only required a few sharp words from Flint before they were in line. Flying was exhilarating and freeing, and they both ended up walking home each evening with private, joyful expressions, never speaking or pausing.  
  
That was a common theme in their daytime interactions; they spoke as little as possible, found ways around eating together, separating the second they reached the Hogsmeade high street, and ignored each other in the evenings as they read, planned for Quidditch, or made notes about their Hogsmeade conversations. The most they ever spoke to each other was during their tea with Minerva, and even then, it was largely through her.  
  
Once they went to bed, however, things were different.  
  
Marcus would appear, not always clothed, always after Oliver was already half asleep. Nighttime in the cottage was a different world, and Oliver was pretty sure it was going to drive them both mad. At night, Marcus would whisper stories from his day, and Oliver would find ways to ask questions that the sun banished from his mind. At night, two pairs of hands found it easy to caress and hold and need, two sets of bodies did not question how they could be so familiar and yet so foreign.  
  
At night, Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint connected and loved, slept in each other's arms, and neither one bothered to question the wisdom of it all.  
  
For a long time, well into the heavy, wet snow of December, things were good. Neither of them would have said otherwise. So, when the bottom fell out, Marcus was actually slightly surprised. Which felt stupid in retrospect; regardless of the fact that what they had been doing was reminiscent of their time at Hogwarts — unhealthy and childish — he had been happy with the arrangement. He was pretty sure that Oliver was too.  
  
It hadn’t crossed either of their minds that things could suddenly spiral into a giant mess, so it was shocking when one random Wednesday, that was exactly what happened.  
  
Wednesdays were complicated. On Wednesday, they got home early. Even if the dreadfully weak winter sun had already dipped well below the horizon when they arrived back at the cottage, it was early. It was undeniably too early to go to bed and it made for an extra long, extremely awkward evening. It was on one of these days that the first fight occurred.  
  
Marcus was already in a foul mood. After an unpleasant meeting with Professor Snape at the Hog’s Head earlier that week, his assignment for the Headmaster had changed, and things had gotten significantly more dangerous ever since. He was not going to tell Oliver this, but it had made him sour; his life was suddenly out of his control, yet again. He was being used as a puppet in a war he didn’t want to fight, and he was angry.  
  
“What the fuck was that this afternoon?” he said viciously the second they got back to the cottage.  
  


**—XxX—**

  
  
“What?” Oliver said cautiously, freezing in the entryway and looking stuck. Marcus’ anger flared, because even if Oliver was truly unaware of what was annoying him, he was pissed off and he needed to take it out on someone.  
  
“You just let them run you about!” Marcus shouted.  
  
“Well, I mean,” Oliver said, a small smile playing at his lips, making Marcus clench his teeth. “We were playing a Chaser’s game. So, yeah, I did….kinda the point. You alright?”  
  
Marcus glared at him and refused to answer. He stomped into the kitchen and began crashing about, smashing pots and slamming cupboards, pulling so many items out of the pantry that Oliver quickly gave up trying to sort out what he was making.  
  
He looked around himself as he settled into a chair by the fire, and realised with a start that they were both living there; he felt silly noticing the way he did, because of  _course_  they were, but the cottage was a mess. A disaster. It hit Oliver very suddenly, the fact that they weren’t just here together. They were  _living_  together. Marcus’ Quidditch gear was strewn from one end of the living room to the other. Oliver’s magazines were in an untidy heap on the floor. There were abandoned socks and jumpers and tea mugs on every surface, and even though it wasn’t the same, the mess suddenly made him remember things he’d been repressing. The memory came back to him like an unpleasant chill.  
  


**—XxX—**

  
  
_Marcus flew about the room, picking up robes and discarded balls of parchment, looking flustered, annoyed, and adorable.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he shouted viciously as Oliver leant against the door frame, amused.  
  
“What?” Oliver smirked. “I’m visiting,_ obviously _.”  
  
“Well, a little warning would have been nice!” Marcus yelled.  
  
“You wanted me to warn_ you,  _my_ boyfriend,  _that I was going to visit you? You never needed warning when I was coming from the other side of the castle,” Oliver pointed out in amusement._  
  
“Well, yes, obviously it's not the same as last year, Ollie!” Marcus said, exasperated.  
  
“Oh no, agreed,” Oliver said carefully, pushing himself off the door and walking into the tornado of a room. “But apparently, you've been having a hard week. I'm here to cheer you up. Besides, I enjoy visiting my boyfriend unannounced. Especially when said boyfriend keeps bragging about his lovely, large, flatmate-free flat.”  
  
“It’s a disaster in here! I’ve been so frigging busy with practise and applications, and you know I can’t fail again, because my mother...And this is not how I wanted you to see if for the first time, Oliver!” Marcus said, distress washing over his face as he held up a very potion-stained set of house robes.  
  
“Marco,” Oliver said gently.  
  
“What?” Marcus replied, throwing the robes on the ground defiantly.  
  
“Come here,” Oliver smiled. He opened his arms and waited. Marcus scowled at him and crossed his arms. “Marco, just come here,” Oliver begged.  
  
“I didn’t want you to see it before I–”  
  
“Marcus, you have seen my room...both here and at my mum’s house. Why in the bloody hell do you think I care?”  
  
“We just...we haven’t had time to spend together this year and I-” Marcus paused, looking at the ground. “I’ve got to...we need to talk. But not right now. I miss you.”   
  
“Yeah, me too. We can talk later.”   
  


**—XxX—**

  
  
Oliver jolted back to the present and stared at Marcus, who was still in the kitchen; unpleasant reminders from their last year together were not uncommon, but this was the first time he’d remembered something that actually felt  _important_. He sent a quick banishing spell around the living room, tidying the jumpers and clothes, set the wooden spoon stirring in a pot that was threatening to boil over, and waited as Marcus froze with a scowl on his face to glare at him.  
  
“Don’t.” He growled. “Don’t do that. Don’t help me.”  
  
“Why are you so angry at me right now?” Oliver demanded.  
  
“It’s not at you. It’s at everything, okay?!” Marcus shouted, throwing his hands up. “This whole ridiculous charade. This whole mad situation. You don’t even—Oliver, my mother, she  _died_  so that she wouldn’t have to deal with this and here I am, voluntarily putting myself in the middle of it! It’s completely mental!”  
  
“Well, yes,” Oliver shrugged. “But I dunno if we are actually in the middle of anything.”  
  
“Well, no, you aren’t,” Marcus muttered, turning back to the stove.  
  
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Oliver said, eyes narrowed.  
  
“You know what I mean. You aren’t exactly having to deal with any of the actual Death Eaters, are you now?”  
  
“Oh, because you  _are_?”  
  
“ _Yes_ , Ollie. Yes, I am,” Marcus said, pausing to look at him significantly.  
  
Oliver stared at him for a moment. His brain sorted through information for a moment, and he shivered again as the pieces lined up.  
  
“Don’t call me that,” he whispered. “Don’t call me that like nothing has changed.”  
  
Marcus’ face hardened instantly. “So that’s it, then?” He hissed. “You’ve sorted it out, I can tell, but you don’t care, do you? It doesn’t matter to you, at all, if I’m the one in danger. That’s fine, Oliver Wood. Fine.”  
  
Oliver inhaled to speak, but Marcus wasn’t done, and he marched toward Oliver until he was right in front of him.  
  
“My mother, she didn’t use her wand,” he whispered, staring him straight in the eye. “You ate in her kitchen, more than once, but do you remember what it looked like? The blue cupboards, the faded marble? It needed a bit of work, but we’ve never had that much money lying around. It was my father’s family that had money.”  
  
Marcus paused, moving one step closer. His breath ghosted across Oliver’s face and his voice dropped even lower. “She sat in  _that_  kitchen, in the middle of the night. She left me sleeping in Norway. She came home, and she swallowed an entire bottle of Dreamless Sleep. The Healers said there was nothing anyone could have done, but that isn’t true, is it Oliver?”  
  
He was still studying Oliver’s face, and although he could feel it, Oliver couldn’t bring himself to look up. “I could have done so much,” Marcus continued. “So many things. I could have gone home sooner. I could have gotten her out of England sooner. I could have passed my N.E.W.T.s the first go round so that I would have been home that year. That isn’t what happened, and now she’s gone. And so are you.”  
  
“Marcus, what are they making you do?” Oliver whispered, forcing his hands to remain at his sides, even though he desperately wanted to lift them to Marcus’ face, where his eyes shone with emotion and his limbs trembled even though his voice was steady. He wanted to take care of the pain, but he couldn’t remember how.  
  
“It hardly matters, does it? It might matter to Nighttime Oliver, but he’s not here. Not right now,” Marcus spat, taking a quick step back, turning off the stove and spinning on his heel, all in one movement. “I’m going to bed.”  
  
He walked away, and even though the sun had barely just sunk below the horizon, he closed the door of the Rose Room hard, the finality of the sound ringing through Oliver’s head for countless minutes after he’d left.


	6. Chapter 6

  
The next day brought snow and plummeting temperatures. The hills were blanketed with frosty patterns from the swirling winds, and the hush that descended on the surrounding area made it even more obvious how silent Marcus and Oliver were as they sat at the table, eating porridge and drinking hasty cups of tea. They'd woken in separate, freezing cold rooms, and neither had spoken a word since.  
  
They set out at the same time, bundled in layers and wrapped in mittens, hats, and scarves. Their boots, which had never really had much practice outside of the sanitized grounds of the school, quickly filled with snow and slush. Had they not been already miserable and silent, they would have been two minutes into their trudging march. They left at the same time, but even a casual observer would have known that they were not at all walking together.  
  
Marcus let Oliver take advantage of his longer, wider stride, and trailed along behind him, his words from the night before rolling around in his head, just as they had been all night long. Something inside him had snapped while standing in that kitchen; maybe the look of nostalgia on Oliver’s face, the easy teasing in his tone, or the irritation that Marcus’ had felt watching him be bested by younger and insolent Hufflepuffs. There had always been times when Marcus had forgotten that Oliver wasn’t a Slytherin, but he hated when they were dragged into the foreground and felt important.  
  
The calm that had settled over Oliver when they’d returned to the cottage had made it very obvious to Marcus that they still hadn’t shared a conversation, that Oliver was still hurt. Marcus was afraid for both of them. He’d needed Oliver to understand what had been at stake; what was still at stake. But he had failed. His temper had surfaced, and now, they weren’t even speaking. As per usual, it was entirely Marcus’ fault.  
  
As they approached the village, Marcus slowed even more, watched as Oliver crossed the street. He was likely heading to his normal morning haunt, waiting at Scrivenshaft’s for a few hours, hoping to run into some of the older witches whose tongues loosened because of his curls and easy smile. Marcus turned away quickly, half sprinting to the end of the high street.  
  
The bell above the door was disturbingly cheerful considering the atmosphere inside of Dervish and Banges, but Marcus was no longer fooled. Even with the posters of the escaped prisoners littering the window, and the outward appearance of a wholesome shop selling sneak-o-scopes and alarmed cauldrons, Marcus knew better now. Three days into his new assignment and he was already well aware of how little was actually safe from the dubious force of the ‘ _Dark Lord’s_ ’ followers.  
  
“Merida?” he called into the empty storefront.  
  
“Flint,” an old woman grinned as she emerged from a back room, revealing her many missing teeth and her serpent-like tongue. He suppressed a shudder at seeing her hair shift across her dress. She was wearing a different snake around her neck than the last time, but the colour of this one was no less unnatural and unsettling. “Back so soon,” she continued, “He will be pleased. He has been waiting.”  
  
“My apologies for not coming yesterday. I had other...responsibilities.”  
  
“No bother, young man. Come along,” she gestured to him and turned, but the eyes of the snake followed him as Marcus followed Merida to the back of the shop, where five pairs of eyes swivelled to meet them. He only recognised one face, and he inhaled silently in his fear. This was not the plan.  
  
“Hello, Rabastan,” he said cautiously. “Didn’t know you had visitors? I can come back later if you’d rather.”  
  
“Nonsense, Flint. Sit,” Lestrange said gruffly. “Gentlemen, this is Angelo Flint’s boy, Marcus.”  
  
“Aren’t the Flint’s known blood-traitors?” An unfamiliar older man asked, squinting at Marcus and making him squirm.  
  
“His father was. We all know the Dark Lord has complicated views on the allegiance of parents and children,” Rabastan said significantly, gesturing again for Marcus to sit.  
  
Marcus took the empty chair slowly and hoped that today was not the day he was outed as a blood traitor.  
  
When he left the shop a little under an hour later, he was blinded by a clear blue winter sky and the crisp, white snow. He squinted all around him for a moment before setting back out. He only made it a few steps before his arm was wrenched uncomfortably. He spun wildly toward his captor and tried to get away.  
  
“Oliver,” he breathed, realising that his fear was unfounded at the familiar height of the man beside him, the familiar grip of long, slender fingers on his forearm. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Not here,” Oliver hissed, dropping his Glamour and letting go. “We will have this conversation at the cottage.”  
  
He charged off ahead, not bothering to slow his steps to match pace. Worried, Marcus quick stepped to follow him and they managed the short walk in record time. Still at full steam, Oliver dropped the wards and rounded on Marcus the second he closed the door.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing, Marcus!?” Oliver screamed. Marcus stood shocked into silence for a moment, and then cast a  _Muffliato_  around them, sensing that whatever this was about was not going to be quiet.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re on about, Oliver,” Marcus said carefully.  
  
“Oh, that’s fucking bullshit, and you know it!” Oliver shouted. “You went in there without a glamour on! So let me ask one more time. What the actual  _fuck_ are you doing?”  
  
“I’m doing what I was asked to, just like you are,” Marcus said wearily.  
  
“You were asked to put yourself in danger, using your own appearance, and enter the sketchiest shop in all of Hogsmeade?” Oliver yelled.  
  
“Yes,” Marcus said simply, staring at Oliver.  
  
“Bollocks!”  
  
“Oh, for love of  _Merlin_ , would you stop swearing! It is not natural, and you sound like a complete knob.”  
  
Oliver sputtered a moment before marching toward Marcus, who was still holding his wand. Marcus didn’t know what his plan was, but when Oliver was only a few inches from him, he froze, studying his face. The air went out of the room for a moment.  
  
“It’s not safe,” Oliver murmured, staring daggers into Marcus’ face. The screaming was gone, but Marcus was suddenly sure that whatever was about to follow was going to be much more terrifying.  
  
“No, it’s not,” Marcus agreed, nodding gently. “It's not safe. I’m meeting with Death Eaters.”  
  
“Wh-why?” Oliver asked, still using his newly found muttering volume and unsettling them both.  
  
“Because it’s how we’ll win,” Marcus whispered.  
  
Whatever he was going to say next, it was lost to the space between them; at that moment, Oliver lunged forward and was in his arms before Marcus had time to prepare himself. He was being embraced in a terrifyingly firm grasp, engulfed in the slightly larger frame of Oliver, who was still enclosed in damp wool and smelling of cold. It should have been unpleasant, but it was anything but.  
  
“It isn’t safe,” Oliver said again, drawing his cheek across Marcus’ face, stubble meeting stubble in a rough and slightly painful pull. “It’s just not safe.”  
  
Oliver kissed Marcus like he would protect him with the simplicity of attached mouths, as if he could end the war with an embrace. For a moment, Marcus let himself forget everything he had heard in that backroom, let himself neglect his knowledge of history and his fear of the evil behind the whole scheme. He let himself believe, just for a moment, that Oliver could save them both. Oliver, who was holding him and kissing him, lips firmly pressed together, in the middle of the cottage.  
  
In the middle of the day.  
  
They were on the sofa before Marcus’ brain was able to right itself. He was pulling at the large buttons of Oliver’s wet coat, and he was prying at the collar of his own. He was kicking off a boot that would leave a puddle of water on the living room floor. He was dragging off hats and mitts, and trying to remember how to do this when they weren’t both mostly asleep and fuzzy-brained. He was so close to panic that his breath was hitching, and not just because Oliver’s mouth was on the cold-but-damp skin of his neck. Everything was so bright. Everything felt so normal, so  _right_.  
  
It wasn’t until Oliver had somehow managed to divest him of his jumper and shirt that Marcus came back to himself, found himself crying and breathing heavily and trying to get away. Oliver stopped moving suddenly, looking at him hard.  
  
“Hey,” he murmured, his hands smoothing down over Marcus’ shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay.”  
  
“It isn’t,” Marcus gasped, jumping away, standing half-naked and shivering. “It isn’t okay. It is so far from okay that you don’t even know how or why.  _Why_ are you kissing me, Oliver? Just...we need to stop. We need to talk.”  
  
“About what, Marcus?” Oliver cried from the sofa. “I’ve been trying to just, I dunno, move on, and now you want to talk? About seventh year? About...after. Why?”  
  
“Because this is  _delusional_ , Oliver. This...whatever this is between us.”  
  
“Fine,” Oliver said shortly, sitting up and staring at him with crossed arms. “Talk.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Is that it? You needed to say sorry?” Oliver said harshly. “For what, Marco? For lying to me for months in our last full year together? For disappearing in the middle of the night? For never writing anything at all to explain?”  
  
Oliver stood up and moved closer to him, approaching like he was a wild animal, hands extended as though he could prevent himself harm. “Or are you sorry for your mother? For your father?”  
  
Oliver’s hands reached for him, drew him closer, as he whispered, “Are you apologising for putting yourself in harm’s way intentionally because you think you owe it to them, to all of us?”  
  
“Stop, Oliver, just–”  
  
“Because let me tell you, Marcus,” he continued. “I know you well enough to know that you are mostly feeling guilty. You are  _never_  sorry for the right things. You are only ever sorry for the things that were never your fault. You've always been that way.”  
  
“Oliver, no that’s not–”  
  
“Oh, but it is, love,” Oliver said, making the endearment sound harsh and broken. “You did what you thought you had to, to protect everyone else. Did that work?”  
  
“No,” Marcus said, leaning his forehead against Oliver’s chin and sighing. “That’s not the problem though, is it?”  
  
They stood in a silent embrace for a moment, both breathing too loudly and neither wanting to be the first to move.  
  
“You have to stop doing whatever it is you are doing,” Oliver muttered, his chin shifting Marcus’ head.  
  
“I can’t,” Marcus said shortly.  
  
“Then I can’t do this,” Oliver said, drawing back and looking at him earnestly. “I can’t. I’ll lose you again. I can’t start over a second time.”  
  
Marcus backed away, shaking his head and picking his shirt up off the floor. He drew it over his shoulders, pulled his wand from his pocket to light a fire in the grate. It was freezing in the old stone cottage, and he was suddenly very aware of the chill.  
  
“You know what, it’s fine,” he breathed. “I don’t need that from you. But I do need to keep doing what I’m doing.”  
  
“Why?!” Oliver shouted, throwing his hands up in frustration. “We can leave! Both of us, right now! We’ll go hide somewhere until this is over, just you and I. You don't owe them anything,  _any_  of them.”  
  
“You don’t mean that, and we both know it. You’d never stay away,” Marcus said, “not when people are dying.”  
  
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Oliver sighed, throwing himself back on the sofa and looking forlorn.  
  
“That is your entire problem,” Marcus said, shaking his head and sitting carefully beside him, the distance feeling cold and intentional. “You're still trying to  _make_  this make sense, Oliver. To make  _us_  make sense,” he put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder and it made the other man flinch. “And it's never going to work because it doesn't make sense.  _We_  don't make sense. We never have.”  
  
He took a deep breath. He was going to say things that could never be unsaid. He was going to lose nighttime Oliver, too, and he wasn’t ready. But he had to. This had to end, one way or another.  
  
“That was always the problem in school, remember?” Marcus said, forcing the words to move past his lips. “Merlin, even our  _teachers_  couldn't understand us together. But we didn't need them to because we worked and we were happy. And now we aren't and it's hurting everyone. It's fucking torture, and I'm done. I can see the pain it's causing you, too. So you've got to decide.”  
  
Oliver was staring at him, and he almost chickened out. He almost stopped short, and almost closed the gap between them, almost pressed himself back into the space he’d left and closed their mouths together. He didn’t, but it was the hardest thing he'd ever done.  
  
“So, Oliver, decide,” he finished. “Are you over it, or not? Are you in it, or are you not? And until you choose, leave me the  _fuck_  out of it, because I'm exhausted.”  
  
He stood up and pulled his boots back on. He grabbed his coat from the coffee table, where it had landed, and he stalked back into the cold air of the Highlands, alone and newly shattered.


	7. Chapter 7

When Oliver woke up cold and alone for the second time in as many days, he was angry before he was anything else. He was angry that Marcus was being so stubborn, angry that he was so annoyed with Marcus for  _being_  stubborn; more importantly, he was angry that he had gotten so used to Marcus being there every morning in such a short amount of time that he noticed the absence so keenly.  
  
At first, he wasn’t worried when he realised that Marcus wasn’t in the cottage, he just ate a hasty breakfast and trekked up to the castle. They had briefly discussed spending the day there, organising and preparing for the holidays instead of going to the village. When Marcus wasn’t there either, Oliver just started cleaning out the Quidditch shed on his own, anger radiating from him for hours.  
  
Then, when Marcus didn’t show up for their final practise with the Ravenclaws before the end of term, Oliver’s rage became tinted with frustrated worry. Marcus was a bastard, with a short fuse and a tendency to ignore his problems at the same time, but he was also responsible and punctual. As Oliver ran the team through easy drills, his brain considered all the possibilities, the most likely one he’d landed on was that Marcus had left. Again. He’d obviously gone back to his family in Norway early, his fight with Oliver reason enough to leave without bidding farewell.  
  
Yet again.  
  
By the time he saw McGonagall striding across the pitch, he was fully fuming.  
  
“Wood,” she said by way of greeting. “I was watching from the stands. You did well, I’m impressed. Where is Flint?”  
  
“Buggered if I know!” Oliver shouted before realising who he was speaking to. “Sorry, Professor. He...he wasn’t at the cottage this morning. I’m not sure where he is. I think he might have gone home, actually. He was leaving tomorrow anyway, and we had a bit of a...disagreement.”  
  
McGonagall studied him for a moment, her features giving nothing away, set in firm, perennial disapproval, just as they usually were.  
  
“Right, well,” she said calmly after a moment. “In that case, I will come down to the cottage for a cup of tea. You can pack while you catch me up. Lead the way, Oliver.”  
  
He hesitated a moment at this odd pronouncement, but lead the way down to the cottage, the short walk undertaken at a brisk pace against the December wind. When he released the wards, McGonagall strode past him immediately and began examining the cottage with a careful eye. Oliver watched from the doorway, frozen as he realised what was happening. He realised because Marcus’ favourite jumper was still on the arm of the chair; he realised his books and magazines were stacked on the table, and his broom was perched in its usual place against the window sill. Oliver’s breath died in his throat, and he immediately felt dizzy.  
  
“Perhaps you’d better sit down,” McGonagall soothed, guiding him by the elbow with her wand drawn. She muttered a Patronus and whispered to the small, glowing cat before it darted off through the window.  
  
A short time later, there was a knock at the door and Dumbledore strode in without waiting for invitation. For the next half an hour, there were people in and out of the little cottage, and Oliver saw none of them. He heard nothing. There was blood rushing in his ears, and an overwhelming drowning scream, which sounded a lot like Marcus saying  _leave me the fuck out of it._  
  
He finally jolted back to the room as his shoulder was gripped tightly.  
  
“Right, Oliver,” Dumbledore said, startling him. He couldn’t remember Dumbledore ever addressing him so informally. “You need to tell Kingsley here everything that happened yesterday, but for now, all we can say for certain is that Mr Flint is missing.”  
  
“Mi-missing,” Oliver repeated robotically. “No, he’s...he’s just in Norway. He went back to Norway because we had a fight.”  
  
“Oliver,” Dumbledore murmured. “Think. If he was, would he have left his broom? Would he have left without a note?”  
  
Oliver leapt up. “Yes, Professor! Yes! He would, because he’s done it before!”  
  
“Oliver,” McGonagall apologised. “We heard from his uncle an hour ago. His family has not seen him.”  
  
 _Missing._  The word rattled him like a blow, and he had to sit back down.  
  
For hours that day, Oliver recounted the evening before, the day before, the moments in the village. Finally, it was only Dumbledore and McGonagall left in the cottage, asking him to pack. They were sending him home anyway, promising that they were doing everything they could, that they would contact him as soon as they knew more, that it wasn’t safe for him to stay any longer.  
  
He packed without knowing what he was doing. He moved without feeling his limbs.  
  
His house looked exactly the same, his room smelled just as it had before he’d left to travel with the team. His mum was thrilled to see him, his dad as indifferent as ever, and the cat looked at him once before disappearing back to its attic home, where it spent most of its time.  
  
Christmas was pointless; he was barely alive. He wasn't sleeping. Not at normal times, at least. He'd wake in the early hours and try to curl into Marcus, only to remember the bed was empty; he'd stay up too late waiting to hear back from McGonagall, then sleep all day trying to ignore the silent, empty hours.  
  
The weeks stretched into months, but he refused to return to Hogwarts. He couldn’t. He resigned fully from the team and set out on his own search. He tried to find out everything he could about the last known hours of Marcus Flint without setting foot in Hogsmeade again. It was, of course, pointless. McGonagall sent him letters once a week, telling him of new leads and that the Aurors were still investigating, but Oliver knew it was pointless. No one even knew who he had talked to that day in Dervish and Banges. How could they possibly hope to find him?  
  
Secretly, Oliver was still convinced that Marcus’ cowardly side had just come out. He was uncomfortable in the cottage, he was being manipulated and used by McGonagall. He suspected that Marcus was just in hiding, waiting for the war to blow over so he could breeze back in like nothing had changed. Just like last time.  
  
On the day of Dumbledore’s funeral, when he ended up back at the castle for the first time in months, he spent the entire day looking around desperately, expecting to see shaggy dark hair and deep chocolate eyes at every turn. He stood at the back of all the students, trying to see everything at once. By the end of the day, it was clear.  
  
Marcus wasn’t there.  
  
Oliver was livid and heartbroken, and he spent the next three days drunk. How dare he? How dare Marcus not even come back for  _that_?  
  
Time stretched out in confusing tendrils. Some months, Oliver would feel every moment like a painful tick, pinpricks in his skin as he checked every corner of the world for clues that Marcus may have left him. Other months, he’d blink and realise he had spent most of the time in bed and that the seasons had changed. His anger and hope turned slowly into grief as the war became real. As the list of missing people grew to include more than just Marcus’ name, and as the list of the known dead became longer than the list of the missing.  
  
The morning of the battle felt like every morning Oliver had felt for the past year and a half, but it wasn’t. He knew it, but he didn’t let it register. He was ready to fight, ready to die. He just didn’t care anymore.  
  
The day went by quickly, with darkness and light, and storms swirling that were not real. By the time he realised that it was all over, he was broken, bruised and forgotten, just as everyone else was. The Great Hall had never felt less like home, with stretchers crisscrossing the expanse of the stone room, the false ceiling just displaying an impenetrable grey. The screams and the crying were loud and horrible, and they echoed off the stone. Oliver lay beside the bodies of three students he didn’t even recognise, his leg bent at an unnatural angle and his heart no longer functioning as it should.  
  
For days after, he lay in the same comatose state in the hospital wing, with Madame Pomfrey buzzing around him and making him feel worse; there were people who were far worse off than him, and he honestly just wanted to leave the castle so they'd all stop trying to care for him.  
  
On the fourth day, McGonagall stepped lightly up to his bedside. Her face told him everything, but he forced himself to listen as she explained.  
  
“Oliver, we… things have become…” she sighed, clearly frustrated with her own inability to articulate. “We found him,” she finally blurted.  
  
Oliver sat up and looked at her face, which looked both pained and resolved. He understood the emotion; the war was over, the madman was gone, but now they were left behind to pick up the pieces.  
  
“He’s dead,” Oliver said bluntly.  
  
She nodded. “Horace found him,” she added. “He’s … we think he’s likely been dead for ... a while.”  
  
“The whole time?” Oliver whispered.  
  
“I don’t know. Maybe,” she grimaced. She reached out to touch his shoulder, and he flinched. She let her arm drop. “He was in the shop, behind a concealed door. There was no way to–”  
  
“Professor, please,” Oliver said, lying down and turning his face away from her. “There are many people dead. I don’t need details of all of them.”  
  
He heard her leave without another word, and he broke into a thousand tiny particles that spread themselves far and wide.  
  


**—XxX—**

  
  
Just like everyone else, Oliver's life picked itself up slowly, in random fits and starts. He got married twice, managed to only divorce once. He and his husband bought a dog and a lovely flat. He bought his own team when he retired, and he spent little time fussing over its management since he still had a very hard time watching Quidditch.  
  
He found friends and hobbies, believed that there was a life worth living that buoyed him through grief. His husband was good and kind, and he came home every single night. It could have been enough, and some days, even Oliver agreed that it was. The seasons moved and shifted around him, the years stretched on.  
  
He never returned to Scotland.  
  
October is a fickle thing. Sometimes, it is beautiful; full of lovely memories and warm nights, full of empathy and promises that the winter will only be temporary. During those years, you could drink cups of tea, wrap yourself in a cosy cardigan. Wax poetic about the shifting of the colours and the crisp evening air, play in leaves.  
  
But sometimes, October howls with pain and bitter wind. It drags along the start of winter, well before winter has been invited. The wind finds ways to whittle into every crack and crevice, bringing damp chill and dead gardens, midnight frost that is so brittle it breaks the leaves before they fall. It reminds you of life's impermanence, of death, and of promises that are easily broken.  
  
And for Oliver Wood, October would always mean homesickness for a home that he'd never see again.


End file.
